By Mark Robinson
IMSA Wire Service
Jesse Lazare has achieved multiple stages of success in IMSA-sanctioned sports car series, including the top-level IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge.
This year, the 27-year-old is returning to his racing roots of single-driver sprint racing and has already made his mark in the IMSA VP Racing SportsCar Challenge that will put on a pair of 45-minute sprints this weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course as part of the O’Reilly Auto Parts Four Hours of Mid-Ohio event.
Lazare drives the No. 21 Motorsports In Action McLaren Artura GT4 in the VP Racing Challenge. It’s the identical GT4-specification machine that he also races with co-driver Michael de Quesada in the Michelin Pilot Challenge, the headline series this week at Mid-Ohio.
In the last VP Racing Challenge doubleheader round at St. Petersburg in March, Lazare charged to the GSX class victory in both races. He enters this weekend 80 points behind GSX leader Luca Mars, who swept the season-opening round at Daytona International Speedway in January.
While Lazare thoroughly enjoys working with a co-driver – he and de Quesada sit third in the Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport (GS) standings – his engine revs when he has the chance to drive solo. It reminds him of the days when he dominated in the IMSA-sanctioned Porsche GT3 Cup USA single-make series, winning a dozen times on his way to the 2016 title.
“I love endurance racing, I love the fact that you have a co-driver, there’s live pit stops,” Lazare said. “But at the end of the day, I’ve also missed my roots; where I came from when I used to do the GT3 Cup sprint racing. And the VP (Racing) Challenge offers you that sprint experience again.
“We’ve always had a second car in case something happened to our other cars (in Michelin Pilot Challenge),” Lazare added about Motorsports In Action. “We found that because it was on some of the same weekends, it wasn’t really that hard to take advantage of a fun series like this. It’s always good to give us another chance to win a championship.”
Lazare said that while the sprint-race format is the same as he faced in the past, the VP Racing Challenge offers more because there are two classes of completely different cars competing: the GSX machines of GT4 spec and Le Mans Prototype 3s (P3). Plus, there are six different manufacturers competing in GSX as opposed to a single make in Porsche GT3 Cup. A total of 22 entries are expected on the grid this weekend.
“Every car is a bit different, so it’s just a whole different way of looking at sprint racing,” he said. “So far, the first two races have been really fun.”
The P3 class is just as competitive after two rounds and four races. Steven Aghakhani (No. 6 MLT Motorsports Ligier JS P320) won the two races at Daytona, with Jagger Jones (No. 87 FastMD Racing with Remstar Duqueine D08) completing the sweep at St. Pete. Aghakhani has a 180-point lead over Miguel Villagomez (No. 23 Escuderia ABRO Ligier) and Brian Thienes (No. 77 Forte Racing Ligier) entering the weekend.
Races are scheduled for 1:15 p.m. ET Saturday and 9:40 a.m. Sunday at Mid-Ohio. Both will stream live on Peacock.
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